§ Mr. StewartTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people in Scotland have a schedule of previous convictions which includes a qualifying offence as defined under clause 1 of the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Bill. [5129]
§ Lord James Douglas-HamiltonInformation supplied by the Scottish Criminal Records Office shows that currently there are some 12,700 people for whom the SCRO has a schedule of previous convictions which includes a qualifying offence as defined under clause 1 of the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Bill. It is not known which of these people are currently resident in Scotland. Of these 12,700 people convicted of qualifying offences, 3,300 were convicted in the High Court.
The information held by the SCRO does not identify whether a conviction for robbery involved a firearm. However, many of those convicted of robbery with a firearm are also convicted under one of sections 16 to 18 of the Firearms Act 1968 which counts as a qualifying offence.